1930 FIFA World Cup

• 1. Introduction

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  The 1930 FIFA World Cup was the first world championship ever staged for men's national football teams. When Argentine supporters set out across the River Plate for the final in Montevideo, they brought a single war cry: Victoria o muerte. Victory or death. An estimated ten to fifteen thousand Argentinians made the crossing by boat. The port at Montevideo was so overwhelmed that many fans never made landfall before kick-off. Those who reached the Estadio Centenario found the gates had opened at eight in the morning, six hours before the match began. By noon, the ground was full. An official attendance of 93,000 was recorded. Every supporter entering was searched for weapons. Inside, two neighbouring nations were about to contest the very first World Cup final. How had football reached this moment in just three weeks? And what had it taken to build the tournament that produced it?

• 2. The Congress Decides

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  At the 17th FIFA congress, held in Amsterdam in May 1928, Jules Rimet formally proposed a world championship for national teams. FIFA vice-president Henri Delaunay put the case plainly: international football could no longer be held within the confines of the Olympics. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain, Hungary, and Uruguay all applied to host the inaugural event. The other candidates withdrew, leaving Uruguay as the sole remaining applicant. The country was approaching the centennial of its first constitution. The Uruguay national team had also retained the football title at the 1928 Summer Olympics. Those two facts made Uruguay's case compelling.

  Every FIFA-affiliated nation received an invitation to compete, with the 28th of February 1930 as the deadline to accept. The competition had originally been planned for sixteen teams, with a potential second division if numbers were sufficient. They were not. Thirteen teams entered in total. Nations from the Americas dominated the entries: Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, and the United States all confirmed their places. Seven South American teams participated, more than in any subsequent World Cup finals. The British Home Nations (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) had resigned from FIFA by that point. The Uruguayan Football Association still sent an invitation to the Football Association. The FA Committee rejected it on the 18th of November 1929.

• 3. Crossing the Atlantic

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  Two months before the tournament was due to begin, no European team had officially entered. The Great Depression was spreading across the continent, and the long, costly voyage by ship to South America gave many football associations pause. The time away from employment also deterred clubs from releasing their players. FIFA president Jules Rimet intervened personally. Four European nations eventually made the trip: Belgium, France, Romania, and Yugoslavia.

  Romania's participation came directly through the newly crowned King Carol II. He personally selected the squad and negotiated with employers to ensure that each player would still have a job on their return. The team was managed by Constantin Rădulescu; their captain, Rudolf Wetzer, shared coaching duties with Octav Luchide. France's situation was more complicated. Rimet intervened on France's behalf. Neither France's star defender Manuel Anatol nor the team's regular coach Gaston Barreau could be persuaded to make the trip. Belgium joined at the instigation of Rodolphe Seeldrayers, the German-Belgian FIFA vice-president.

  The Europeans boarded a single ship: the SS Conte Verde. The Romanians embarked at Genoa, Italy. The French and Yugoslavians were collected at Villefranche-sur-Mer in France on the 21st of June 1930. The Belgians came aboard at Barcelona. Jules Rimet was on the same vessel, along with the World Cup trophy and the three designated European referees. The Brazilian team joined when the ship docked in Rio de Janeiro on the 29th of June. The Conte Verde reached Uruguay on the 4th of July, just nine days before the tournament's opening matches. The stadium that would host the final was still being built.

• 4. Firsts on the Pitch

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  Juan Scasso designed the Estadio Centenario as the tournament's primary venue. It was also a monument to Uruguayan independence, built to mark one hundred years since the country's founding. Jules Rimet called it "a temple of football." With a capacity of 90,000, it stood as the largest football stadium outside the British Isles. A rainy winter delayed construction. The Centenario was not ready until five days into the tournament. Early matches went to two smaller Montevideo grounds: the 20,000-capacity Gran Parque Central and the 10,000-capacity Estadio Pocitos.

  The first two World Cup matches were played simultaneously on the 13th of July 1930. France beat Mexico 4-1 at the Estadio Pocitos. The United States defeated Belgium 3-0 at the Gran Parque Central. Lucien Laurent of France struck the opening goal of World Cup history. United States goalkeeper Jimmy Douglas kept the competition's first clean sheet on the same afternoon. The American team, which contained a significant number of new caps, were reportedly nicknamed "the shot-putters" by an unnamed source in the French contingent. Whatever the origin of the nickname, they reached the semi-finals.

  Group 3 produced the strangest attendance figure in the tournament's brief history. The official crowd for Romania's match against Peru was recorded as 2,459, though the actual figure is generally accepted to have been around 300. Romania won that match 3-1. Adalbert Deșu scored the fastest goal of the competition, opening the scoring after just 50 seconds. The same group saw the first player expulsion, when Plácido Galindo of Peru was sent off. Uruguay had spent the four weeks preceding the tournament in a strict training camp. Goalkeeper Andrés Mazali was dropped from the squad for breaking curfew to visit his wife.

  Bolivia arrived having never won an international match. For their opening game, each player wore a shirt bearing a single letter, the team spelling out "Viva Uruguay" as they lined up.

  Guillermo Stábile scored a hat-trick on his international debut as Argentina beat Mexico 6-3. Their captain, Manuel Ferreira, had returned to Buenos Aires to sit a law exam and missed the match. In Group 4, Bert Patenaude of the United States scored the tournament's first hat-trick against Paraguay. That claim was disputed for decades. Until the 10th of November 2006, FIFA had credited the first hat-trick to Stábile, scored two days after Patenaude. FIFA then reattributed a goal previously assigned to Patenaude's teammate Tom Florie, officially confirming Patenaude's record.

  Argentina and Uruguay both won their semi-finals by a score of 6-1. In the second semi-final, Pedro Cea completed a hat-trick as Uruguay beat Yugoslavia. The 1928 Olympic final had ended with Uruguay defeating Argentina 2-1 after a replay. The two nations were about to meet again.

• 5. Champions of the World

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  The final was played at the Estadio Centenario on the 30th of July. A dispute over who should provide the match ball had shadowed the build-up. FIFA intervened and decreed that Argentina would supply the ball for the first half and Uruguay their own for the second. Luis Monti played for Argentina despite receiving death threats on the eve of the match. Belgian referee John Langenus officiated. Uruguay made one change from their semi-final line-up: Castro replaced Anselmo, who had fallen ill.

  Pablo Dorado opened the scoring with a low shot from the right. Argentina responded with superior passing. Carlos Peucelle received a through-ball from Ferreira, beat his marker, and equalised. Shortly before half-time, Guillermo Stábile, the tournament's leading scorer, gave Argentina a 2-1 lead. Uruguay captain Nasazzi protested to Langenus that Stábile had been offside, but the goal stood. In the second half, Uruguay gradually asserted control. Pedro Cea scored the equaliser. Ten minutes later, Santos Iriarte put the hosts ahead. Castro scored just before full-time to seal a 4-2 win. Langenus blew the final whistle a minute later. Uruguay had become the first nation to win the FIFA World Cup.

  Ninety minutes at the Centenario set two distinctions that still hold. It remains the only World Cup final contested between two Spanish-speaking nations. It is also the only one played between two South American sides. The 1950 deciding match between Brazil and Uruguay was a final group-stage game, not a cup final.

  Jules Rimet presented the trophy, which would later be named in his honour, to Raúl Jude, the head of the Uruguayan Football Association. The following day was declared a national holiday in Uruguay. In Buenos Aires, a mob threw stones at the Uruguayan consulate. Francisco Varallo, who had played as a forward for Argentina in the final, was the last survivor of that match. He died on the 30th of August 2010 at the age of 100.

  Uruguay's aggregate goal difference of positive twelve across four matches works out to an average of positive three per game. That average remains the highest per match of any World Cup champion. Only Hungary's 1954 campaign has produced a higher average goal difference among all World Cup participants. The opening match of the 2030 FIFA World Cup is planned for the Estadio Centenario. It will fall a full century after the world's first champions lifted the trophy on that same ground.